Filmmaker Zhang Yimou directed Weaving Machine, a choreographed piece with an array of 640 kinetic lights, and the results are pretty mind-blowing. Read the rest

"The Mechanics of History" by Yoann Bourgeois is a marvellously simple idea perfectly executed: acrobats climb stairs around a revolving trampoline, falling languidly from the stairs in rhythm.

Here it is in daylight:

Below is an earlier exploration of the theme titled "Fugue/Trampoline":

Accompanied by Philip Glass’s moody “Metamorphosis Two” performed by Brisa on the harp, “Fugue/Trampoline” and its iterations, is perhaps what Bourgeois is most famous for. Using a nine-step staircase and a trampoline, Bourgeois resists and submits to gravity, creating a breathtaking, balletic spectacle. Beginning with a limp, careless-looking slump of his body onto the trampoline, Bourgeois’ body bounds back up to the wooden platform with the softest elegance. He repeats the exercise, embracing gravity with different strokes, hurtling, spinning or curling into a fall. When returning to the platform or a step, he always lands on his feet, more often than not regaining his vertical balance with a single foot, or just his toes. At BAM he wore an unzipped cardigan which spiraled around his body, tracing the centrifugal motion and amplifying the visual sense of flight.

• Yoann Bourgeois "La mécanique de l'histoire" (Energie) - Le Panthéon Paris (YouTube / a music lover in Paris) Read the rest

Cindy Sherman is posting publicly on Instagram as _cindysherman_ after having her account set to private under a different account name. Many recent images use distortions and filters. Read the rest

Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich made quite the entrance at the Met Gala, but it didn't get the kind of coverage as the reality TV toilet selfie. In fact, the artist had no coverage until security laid a beautiful drape across him and had him arrested. Read the rest

Late last year, Shaun Leonardo reprised his art project called "I Can't Breathe." Audience members are paired up and taken through a series of self-defense instructions. It culminates with audience members put in chokeholds by their partners, where they learn that any defensive moves to keep their airways open can be classified as resisting arrest. Read the rest

"The Hard Problem" is a new episode of the Into The Impossible podcast from the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination: it features the outcome of a collaboration between legendary performance artist Marina Abramović (previously) and environmentalist science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson (previously): a short story about an interstellar journey incorporating elements of Robinson's outstanding 2015 novel Aurora -- a novel that is pitiless in its insistence on rigor in our thinking about the problems of living in space and on other planets.

Dean Hutton is a South African artist whose most notorious project involves walking around in a custom-printed black and white suit and absorbing the responses from strangers. Read the rest

What happens if you allow a group of onlookers to do anything they want to you for six hours? Marina Abramovich found out in 1974 when she laid out dozens of items on a table, including a gun with one bullet, and allowed strangers to use the items on her however they saw fit. Read the rest

Hiromi Tango creates sculptures of colorful textiles, neon, and mirrors, then interacts with the pieces as performance art, like this exploration of the amygdala, part of her Dynamic Emotions series. Read the rest

Charlie Todd from Improv Everywhere (previously) writes, "We set up a fake press conference set on the steps of the New York Public Library. When random tourists approached it to pose for photos, a mob of reporters ran up and surprised them with an impromptu press conference." Read the rest

You've no doubt seen those street performance artists who wear metallic clothes and makeup and stand in frozen poses. Well, here's a gentleman who is apparently unfamiliar with these performances, because he reaches into a performer's tip bucket to steal money from it. The performer breaks character and delivers a sharp kick to the thief's head. Read the rest